Andre Yoskowitz
20 May 2009 23:35
A team of researchers from the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia have announced today they have created a "five-dimensional" optical media that can hold up to 1.6 terabytes of data, and that could easily be on the market within 10 years.
The researchers used 'nanoparticles and a "polarization" dimension' to create the massive storage capacity. The team has already signed a deal with Samsung, who says the disc could potentially hold up to 10 terabytes.
"We were able to show how nanostructured material can be incorporated onto a disc in order to increase data capacity, without increasing the physical size of the disc," adds Min Gu, part of the team.
"These extra dimensions are the key to creating ultra-high capacity discs."
The Reuters report explains that "DVDs currently have three spatial dimensions but using nanoparticles the researchers said they were able to introduce a spectral -- or color -- dimension as well as a polarization dimension."